Police kill 3 foreign drug smugglers in shootout

The National Police say they shot dead three armed foreign drug smugglers on Friday who put up a fight when officers moved to foil their plans.

“They (smugglers) used firearms and exchanged shots with the police as they were dropping off the crystal meth. This is an international syndicate from overseas,” police spokesman Boy Rafli Amar said on Friday, as quoted by kompas.com.

He added that the police arrested one smuggler and confiscated evidence in the form of weapons and crystal meth in the incident, which took place at Ujung Genteng Beach in Pelabuhan Ratu in Sukabumi, West Java, early on Friday.

The operation, Boy said, was a follow up to a similar procedure on Monday, in which the police successfully arrested six suspected smugglers on a boat, he said.

However, in that particular operation, the police failed to come away with crystal meth as evidence because it was lost when the boat capsized before officers managed to reach it. The police, he added, were still unable to identify the arrested suspects. (awd)